


Raising the Heterodyne

by TanukiKyle



Series: Castle Heterodyne [2]
Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-15
Updated: 2017-02-01
Packaged: 2018-06-02 10:50:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6563314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TanukiKyle/pseuds/TanukiKyle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The main fic for this series, an AU where Punch and Judy remained in Mechanicsburg, and a heavily injured Barry couldn't and wouldn't make it back. However, that didn't leave him a lot of options for raising Agatha...or protecting her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm finally writing this thing! yay! Each chapter may have different POV's, so chapter length will vary - this one's really....short, but it was a good place to end it.

He is tired.

He is tired, injured, grieving and all his body is doing is screaming at him to rest but he cannot stop. He looks down at the bundle tucked in his working arm, and resolutely ignores the other one’s nerve signals.

Above all he is desperate.

If he had time, if he had a plan, if it didn’t involve going back to Mechanicsburg, he’d look for Punch and Judy. They were substitute parents to Bill and him. They would have raised the child well...kept her safe. But Mechanicsburg is too risky. 

Bitterly, he knows that Europa itself is too risky. The Other (he won’t think of him as Klaus, he can’t reconcile that yet, can’t reconcile his (friend)....(hero)...(ally)...he just can’t.) The Other is almost everywhere.

But where else can he go? Paris does not allow Heterodynes, and Barry is too well known. England is out of bounds for similar reasons, and anywhere else is too far. So he’s going out on a limb (and that phrase makes his lips twitch a little, even though it’s as far from true humour as he is from healthy) and risking this. It’s not a plan, because he refuses to deign something as stupid as this with the title of a plan.

But it might work, and that will have to do. 

He’s been staking out this remote outpost for weeks. Watching the guards. One guard in particular. A guard he knows. He’d like to think that they’re unaware of the truth of what they’re doing, but he can’t bank on that. What he can bank on is their fanatical loyalty to Bill. 

He can use that to manipulate them, should it come to it. 

Usefully, Vilka takes messenger missions a lot, as well as guard duty. This time instead of meeting their destination, they’re going to meet Barry on the way. Barry doesn’t even need to intercept them, he suspects - most jägers had enhanced senses, after all, and Barry can’t move too silently right now, even staying still his breathing is laboured and heavy. It hurts. It hurts a lot, but Barry can’t give in. Not now, not after everything. Not whilst there’s still. 

Hope isn’t perhaps the word, just like this isn’t a plan. But it’s close enough, a tiny glimmer of a future where everything doesn’t suck, and one thing Barry’s never been prone to is giving up. So he waits at the edge of the road, just behind the treeline, and guards that glimmer in his heart. 

He shifts the bundle of baby supplies, resolve hardening as he sees the diminutive figure round the corner, and he steps forward.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry makes a decision.

Final checks completed, and with a nod to the jäger at the gate of the guardhouse, Vilka departed.   
  
Another messenger mission, which wasn’t unusual. Vilka wasn’t fond of staying in the same place, and they were fast. Not as fast as other jägers, and better over short distances then extended running but. Still noticeable, so it meant they got sent on messenger missions a lot.   
  
Today’s message was long-distance, which meant that Vilka would be meeting up with the mail balloon en-route to the next base to drop off the multitude of non-secure messages, then delivering the last one themself. Pretty routine, so whilst Vilka was paying attention to the road, they weren’t exactly on alert. Nobody really came on this road unless they were heading to the base, after all.

So the figure standing at the edge of the road as they rounded the corner was a surprise. Vilka didn’t pause, continuing at their steady pace, but they lifted their head slightly, scenting the air. Then they stopped.   
  
Then they stopped /hard/, almost falling on their face as they stumbled, limbs shaking with disbelief. It could be a trick, they reminded themself to stop them just running over. It could be an enemy, it could be some clever spark with a scent-synthesiser - apparently their legs hadn’t got the memo of waiting though because Vilka found themself walking over, drawn by the scent.

  
The impossible, improbable scent of Heterodyne.

(And below that, Vilka scented blood and burnt flesh, sweat. If it was Barry (because it was his scent, if slightly off) he was injured.)

Squinting through their goggles and bringing up a hand to adjust them they almost stopped breathing as they recognised his face - older, more stressed but.

  
“.....Master Barry?”   
  
Their voice cracked a little as they spoke, and Vilka was blinking rapidly - partly to convince themselves they were seeing correctly and partly to prevent tears.

  
He was really here. He was going to come home. They were ALL going to get to go home!

"If you ever cared about Bill at all, be quiet and follow me."

  
Barry’s voice matches his appearance. Tight and tired and angry. Vilka’s ears flick, but they still. Half-open their mouth. Close it again.

They follow silently as Barry walks away, as he takes them ‘cross the grasslands and into the dense thickets that lead to the forest. Vilka’s ears are flicking, tracking every sound they hear in case it proves a threat.   
  
Ahead, Barry is silent. His breathing is laboured, and Vilka desperately wants to say stop, Master, please, please stop so I can treat your wounds - because he is wounded, it’s painfully obvious now, even if the scents hadn’t given up that information.

He pauses in a clearing, turns. Vilka stops, unconsciously settling into parade rest. Barry eyes them again, and Vilka struggles to read his body language, his gaze. After a moment, he speaks.

  
“How many jägers would still aid me?”

Vilka blinks. That. That was not on the expected questions list. Mind you, Barry wasn’t exactly on the expected people on the road list, either. They pause for a second.

  
“All ov dem?”   
  
Barry frowns, and Vilka hastens to add the exception.

  
“Hy mean except Vole! Bot he is not jäger, not really. Und hy guess som ov hyur fathers might grumble a leedle, bot ve vould still all follow hyu. Hyur our heterodyne!”   
  
Vilka’s voice cracks a little on the last sentence.

  
“Hm. The jägers seem much happier now they’re fighting under Klaus.”

Vilka’s mouth drops open a little. How- how can he think that! The jägers swore to serve a HETERODYNE, not some some BARON. Sure the fighting’s nice but it’s not the same! Even waiting in Mechanicsburg and being forced to watch as you put yourself in danger again and again and we could do nothing to protect you was better tha -

  
Barry holds up a hand to stop the flow, and it is only then that Vilka realises they’ve been speaking out loud and that they’re glowing furiously. The glow flickers and dims.

  
“Master Barry I- I -”

“Quiet.”

Vilka’s mouth shuts with a click, and they pray they’ve not fucked this up. Barry appears to be thinking. After a moment, he speaks again.

“Alright - if that’s true then, why did you join Klaus?”

Vilka blinks.   
  
“Vell, hyu dissappeared. De Generals….dey spoke to Klaus, und den dey said to us dat ve vould be vorking vit him to continue vot hyu started and destroy the Other.”

Barry snorts.   
  
“Klaus is the Other.”

Vilka stills, but they don’t question their Heterodyne, not this time. Their mind flicks over the missions they’ve heard about to do with the Other. They’ve never been sent on one directly, but they’ve heard other jägers talk about them, about hunting down the technology. It’s possible. Vilka doesn’t like to think it, but it’s horribly horribly possible.

  
“....do….do de generals know?”

“I don’t know. I thought the jägers knew, but you obviously didn’t.”

  
Barry seems to relax just a fraction - whatever he’s able to read off Vilka, it’s reassured him.

“Either way, it’s hardly safe to announce my return, at least not without more information.”

Vilka nods. They hate it, but they nod.

“Vot do hyu need, odder den medical attention?”

Barry pauses, and he looks at Vilka, in his mind’s eye seeing the small, skinny kid who argued medical facts with Bill. He blinks, and the image is gone, but the thought remains.   
  
“....This way, Vilka.”

It’s the first time they’ve heard their name out of his mouth for a long time, even before they left mechanicsburg,  and Vilka snaps to attention.

  
“Hyes, Master Barry!”   
  
Barry leads on, favouring his better leg more and more as they go deep into the forest to the edge of the nearby cliffs. As they near, Vilka gets more and more tense. Barry is still walking determinedly, but Vilka worries for his health, and they can start to see the signs of passage now among the denser foliage - broken twigs, crushed leaves and the like.   
  
Of course, it’s probably just Barry’s passage out, but all the same. Vilka’s just found him, they’re not going to lose him already.   
  
“Master?”

Vilka tries quietly and Barry pauses momentarily before continuing.

  
“Almost there, we can sort out the medical attention then.”

“Hyes Master, bot….there are signs of passage and hy can hear clicking. Could hy perhaps guard hyu by goink first?”

Barry continues walking as if he hadn’t heard, but there’s a line of tension in his shoulders that suggests he did hear. Vilka waits, perhaps walking a little closer than they should just in case something does come of that clicking.

“...It’s a clank, hy set it up to guard.”

Vilka is reassured, but they don’t drop back. There could be something else out here after all, and they- they won’t let it happen again. Whatever hurt Barry, whatever dared to damage their heterodyne and take them away for so long, whatever dares come after him now - Vilka will never let that happen again. Even if it means disobeying the Generals (and doesn’t that make their stomach feel funny) even if it means fighting the whole goddamn army (their chest constrict) they won’t. They won’t let their Heterodyne down. (Not this time, not again.)

The clicking increases in noise until it is even audible to human ears, and Barry draws a pendant out of a bag and throws it to Vilka.

  
“Put this on, the clank won’t let you through otherwise.”

Vilka catches the pendant, a tiny brass trilobite. For a second, they observe the play of light across the beaten and stamped metal, before looping it carefully around their neck, a lump in their throat.

Barry continues, pausing occasionally (and pausing Vilka with a raised hand) to disable a number of nasty traps.  Wherever they’re going, he’s guarded it with all the resources he can muster, so there’s got to be something valuable inside. (Or someone? Vilka barely dares to hope.)

The clank is not Barry’s best work - he’s obviously worked with what he’s had to hand, but it looks like it’d be a tough fight. It scans the pair of them and beeps happily, going back to scanning the surrounding area.

Barry ducks into what could charitably be called a cave - in reality it is more of a hollow, and there isn’t space for Vilka to follow him in.  
  
He comes out holding a small girl-child who smells like Heterodyne and Bill, and Vilka’s mouth falls open.

Barry approaches and hands the sleeping child to Vilka. Straight into their arms, like there was never a question about their loyalty at all. Whilst Vilka is adjusting the hold to make the baby more comfortable and adjusting to the shock, Barry speaks.

  
“This is Agatha. She’s Bill and Lucrezia’s daughter.”

Vilka swallows around the lump in their throat. There are so many things they want to say. So many things they are feeling. Gratitude, that Barry has decided to trust them. Honour that it was them. Wonder at the soft, sweet smell of baby and heterodyne together. Devotion, newly-made for the baby and re-forged for Barry. They feel like a container filled to the brim, where one more drop will make it spill over. But they have to stay strong, for Barry and Agatha both.

Barry can’t scent emotions the way Vilka can, but he’s a Heterodyne and he knows Vilka. And what he sees in their face, their body language, the way they’re looking at Agatha...he made the correct choice.  
  
With that, he relaxes.   
  
Which is a mistake, because that means the pain comes back full force. His face goes white, and then his vision goes black.

The last thing he hears is Vilka’s wordless cry, swiftly followed by Agatha’s wail.

  
  
  
  



	3. Chapter 3

Vilka experiences a rush of terror the like they haven’t felt in - well, ever, really. There is a wailing heterodyne child in their arms, and a fallen heterodyne on the floor. Panic hits, but allowing the panic to take over is not an option. Calling for help is not an option - there’s nobody else here and who could they trust anyway? Barry’s made it clear that the other jägers might not be trustworthy. (and that...that hurts. The very idea that the jägers would betray their oaths is ludicrous but what if they did? If even one jäger holds ill intent towards Barry and this child, Vilka won’t risk it.)   
  
Vilka takes deep breath and prioritizes.    
  
The child is gently placed on the floor, continuing to wail. Emotional distress - as unfortunate and distressing as it is - must come second to the injuries Barry has suffered. Vilka keeps one ear to the child anyway though. Young as she is, she’s a Heterodyne, and Vilka doesn’t trust her not to wander (crawl?) off because something looks interesting.

 

In the meantime, they strip Barry clinically - unwilling to manipulate his limbs because of how he’s been favouring them, Vilka uses their claws to shred his clothes at the seams (for easy re-stitching) revealing the injuries beneath. Vilka sucks a breath in as they catalogue the state of him. Humans are generally more fragile than jägers, but this is a painful reminder. The arm he’s been avoiding is a mess. There’s no bone visible, but there’s barely any unmarked skin, either. Blisters and shiny burns dominate the skin, interspersed with vicious claw marks that have rent the skin and left cuts in their wake. This pattern of injuries continues onto his chest, where thankfully the severity of the burns recedes. Deep bruising colours his abdomen, and Vilka notes to check internal bleeding as a priority even as their eyes keep scanning. Cuts litter his body, a few taped up but the majority untreated. His leg is broken, rudimentarily splinted but leaning in Vilka scents infection. 

 

“Oh Master….”

  
Vilka whispers as they reach for their pack, and the medical kit contained within. They can’t treat injuries of this caliber with what they usually have - but this time, this time Vilka is lucky. One of the recent care packages came with some battledraught, and as one of the resident medics, Vilka has a vial of it.

  
It’s risky. Battledraught is a great healer for jägers, but Barry’s not a jäger. There tend to be side-effects.   
  
Vilka sighs, rolling the vial in their hands. They can’t do it. They can’t with good conscience give jäger medicine to someone who hates jägers like Barry does. At least not until it’s the only option. The alternatives are going to hurt. It’s a good job Barry’s unconscious.    
  
The priority is his abdomen. Vilka presses gently upon it, and the skin is firm, almost swollen. His pulse is slower than it should be. Internal bleeding is likely, which means Vilka’s going to need to open him up. If he wakes up in the middle of this, things are going to go very wrong. Vilka’s going to have to drug him. They shudder, but suppress it. They can freak out later - for now, they’re going to be down a heterodyne if they don’t get this sorted. Vilka measures the anesthetic carefully - it’s jäger-strength, after all - and finds a vein. 

  
Their hand is shaking, and Vilka pauses. Breathes in and out. Flinches as something touches them, before turning to see the girl child looking at them solemnly, tiny hand on their leg. She babbles something and Vilka feels the prick of tears in their eyes. They breathe in, and the hand that’s not holding the syringe pats the child’s blonde head, cautious of claws. The child seems content with this, and climbs into Vilka’s lap. Vilka closes their eyes. They can’t. They can’t. They have to. Opening their eyes, they shift the child and lean over Barry, and smoothly inject the anesthetic. They listen for Barry’s pulse, but it doesn’t slow further, and they breathe in relief.    
  
The child is curled into their shirt, tiny fingers gripping it tightly. Vilka swallows, and even as they draw a scalpel from the bag, starts to sing a lullaby, praying it will soothe her. Vilka’s not a great singer, more used to bawdy bar songs and war-chants then anything like a lullaby. But their mother used to sing to them, when they were small and human. Used to soothe them with it, and Vilka’s voice is quiet and soft as they sing the tune, sweet in memory. 

 

“Shush little child, don’t you cry,

Vilka’s gonna sing you a lullaby,

The heterodynes are singing too,

Can’t you hear the humming anew,

They’re making things in the castle lab,

Things that bite and punch and stab,

Whether it’s a jäger or a brand new clank,

Whether it’s a construct or an upgraded tank,

Mechanicsburg is safe in their grasp, 

So I beg of you in my throaty rasp,

Sleep little child, dream of blood and fire,

Dream of triumph and a victory pyre, 

But most of all, dream of home,

The only place you’ve ever known…”

 

Even as they’re singing, they’re working. Careful incision into the abdomen, peeling the skin back and drawing out the blood. Thankfully the cause is a laceration rather than a rupture. Drawing surgical thread and a needle, Vilka begins to stitch with a precise hand. They don’t allow themselves to think about who they’re working on, don’t allow themselves to think about anything other than fixing their patient. They tie the sutures off, close the patient up. Stitch that. Stitch the other lacerations that require stitches. Glue those that don’t.  After that it’s the burns - gently applying ointment and carefully wrapping them with a non-stick dressing. Then they come to the matter of the leg. It need resetting and there’s brewing infection, so they carefully break and reset the leg and apply a poultice. Strap it up again.   
  
Dribble fluids into the patients mouth whilst being careful not to dislodge the child sleeping on you.   
  
Wait.

 

Vilka thought they’d stopped having to wait. That once Barry had found them they wouldn’t have to wait again.   
  
But here they are, waiting, unable to help, just….waiting.

  
  


Vilka closes their eyes, breathes. Listens to Barry’s steady breathing, the girl’s softer breaths. The clank patrolling outside.

  
  
They wait. 

  
  



End file.
